Absurd for Paul Givan to meet LCC over Irish school … imagine outrage if Sinn Fein met with Saoradh to talk policy
David Campbell
Suzanne Breen
Yesterday at 08:00
A bunch of men representing other men involved in drug-dealing, intimidation and extortion tell a government minister that a school shouldn’t be built.
In any normal society, a group like the Loyalist Communities Council wouldn’t be entertained by those in power. If they somehow managed to wangle their way into a room, they’d be swiftly shown the door once it was established who they were. But, hey-ho, this is Northern Ireland, and we do things differently here.
There aren’t enough adjectives in the dictionary to convey how absurd it is that Paul Givan met LCC representatives to discuss any educational matter.
Under-achievement by working-class Protestant boys must be addressed, but the representatives of the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando aren’t the first people who spring to mind when the issue is on the agenda.
I must have missed all their expert research and papers on the subject over the years.
The LCC appears to have been emboldened after their audience with Givan. They contacted the media to reveal how they’d told the minister to halt plans to build an integrated Irish language school in east Belfast.
Here’s the reality that is as farcical as it is foolish: the hard men of loyalist paramilitarism feel ‘threatened’ by a few dozen kids between the ages of three and 11.
What will the youngsters hoping to start in Scoil na Seolta be doing? They’ll be learning to count. They’ll be singing the Alphabet Song. They’ll be dancing and painting and playing.
The older ones will be engaging in those dangerous activities of arithmetic, reading and learning a musical instrument. All this will be done through the medium of Irish. The only thing outrageous is that anybody objects to it.
Belfast City Council gave the green light for the temporary nursery, primary school and play area on the Montgomery Road in June.
Eleven councillors voted to grant planning permission and five — all DUP — voted against it.
The school is self-funding. It isn’t relying on a penny from the Department of Education. It has received over 100 expressions of interest from parents in recent weeks.
The LCC has no business sticking its nose in what Scoil na Seolta does or doesn’t do. It is not a legitimate stakeholder in educational matters.
Let’s imagine what would happen if a Sinn Fein minister did the equivalent of what a DUP minister did this week.
John O’Dowd meets Saoradh to discuss infrastructure issues, and the dissident republican group issues a statement afterwards advising him against the development of a part of the A5 project.
Caoimhe Archibald has a tete-a-tete on household rates with the political representatives of the New IRA who then tell the media which bills she shouldn’t be raising.
There would be absolute outrage from the DUP and its supporters if any Sinn Fein minister went down that path. Indeed, it could well place the very continuation of the power-sharing institutions under threat.
The LCC was set up almost a decade ago to assist loyalist paramilitaries to leave the stage. It has been an abject failure.
Far from disbanding and demobilising, recruitment has continued. These organisations still have thousands of members.
The DUP is sticking to its political guns on the LCC. East Belfast MLA David Brooks told the education committee he wouldn’t be apologising when unionists “are expected to sit in chambers with people from a republican background who have a history of violence”.
DUP MLA David Brooks
The key is that h-word: history. Brooks pointed to Sinn Fein MLAs Gerry Kelly and Pat Sheehan. Neither were choirboys during the conflict. But the IRA’s war is over three decades ago. Loyalist paramilitaries are active in the here and now.
I like and respect Paul Givan. He is the most capable member of the DUP’s Stormont team. In March, he engaged in his own bridge-building with a cèilidh and a cúpla focal at Irish medium primary school Gaelscoil Aodha Rua in Dungannon. Yet sometimes it feels like it’s one step forward and two back with the DUP.
Emma Little-Pengelly
Liaising with the LCC is not restricted to Givan. Edwin Poots — accompanied by Ian Paisley — met the loyalist organisation after becoming leader in June 2021. Arlene Foster had done the same four months earlier. Emma Little-Pengelly defended such meetings last year. Jeffrey Donaldson briefed the LCC on his deal to restore devolution in January.
Arlene Foster
The doors of some in high political office are open to the group, but it can’t be allowed to win on Scoil na Seolta. We all must show up for the kids, and stand against those who represent the thugs and bullyboys.
As party gears up for general election in Republic, its differing fortunes on both sides of border are stark. It must now find a way to appeal to fickle electorate in South without alienating its base
Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill at the Sinn Fein ard fheis in Athlone
Allison Morris
Today at 01:35
Sinn Fein’s strength in harnessing the republican vote was always as an all-island party with unity as its core message.
But the weekend ard fheis has shown that while discussions around Irish unity have grown year on year and are now part of the mainstream political discourse, uniting the two sides of the party — north and south — is proving much more difficult.
It is gearing up for a general election in the Republic, and will be directing resources into achieving its best ever results after a disappointing showing in the local and EU elections earlier this year.
It comes at a difficult time, with the party in a self-reflective mode as politics and priorities among voters change at a rapid pace — on occasion too quickly for policy to keep ahead of.
For the second year running the ard fheis was held in Athlone on the banks of the River Shannon.
The venue is not popular with many of the northern grassroots, who find the location inaccessible due to poor transport links, the expense and limited accommodation.
This may sound like a small issue to complain about, but Sinn Fein members class themselves as activists willing to give up their time when duty calls.
Being priced out of attendance at the ard fheis has left some feeling like the unwanted and uncouth cousins at a posh wedding.
The growth of Sinn Fein has brought a new type of party member, people who are not influenced by the political affiliations of their parents or grandparents.
For the first time Ireland is turning into a three-party state, with a century of dominance by the two civil war parties seemingly at an end.
This growth also attracted people with no attachment to the origins of modern Sinn Fein or the Troubles north of the border.
Sinn Fein’s voter base was originally almost entirely a working class urban electorate, but the rapid growth of the party saw a change.
In the north, demographics have helped fuel its ascendancy — a growing and more youthful nationalist middle class, but with parents or grandparents who would have been from that republican tradition.
They have moved to more affluent areas, taking up key positions in business and law, but taking their culture, sport and politics with them.
In the south, that has not been the case.
People from more traditionally affluent or middle class areas found their children priced out of the property market. The path traditionally followed to home ownership was closed. Foreign property speculators were buying up portfolios of thousands of properties, pushing up the rental market and pricing people out.
Companies like Airbnb, a company built on the quaint idea of making a few pounds by renting an empty room to a tourist, soon became a business empire that has changed the property market for the worse.
This sent those voters looking for an alternative, many finding Sinn Fein.
But how do you create a party of property rights, big business, and still reflect the origins of a socialist and democratic movement with rights and equality as core values?
This, and the rising cost of immigration that has fuelled a small but vocal far-right, has created an angry electorate, and one that has no traditional voter loyalty and will therefore swing with the wind.
Sinn Fein made only small gains in the last election in the Republic despite the opinion polls predicting a landslide only a year ago.
And so this ard fheis was most certainly a more reflective one.
In Celtic Ireland, it was said that all roads led to the Hill of Tara and the halls of the High King. This weekend all roads will lead to Athlone for the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (annual convention).
The Ard Fheis draws delegates from all levels of the party to elect the Sinn Féin National Officer Board and Ard Chomhairle (National Leadership Council) and set party policy.
It is an open and democratic forum to debate policy and organizational priorities for the incoming leadership.
Over one thousand members will attend the two-day conference with hundreds of speakers and fringe events. The debates will be lively and votes will be taken.
It is a great way to renew old connections, grab a coffee, and catch up on the latest scéal (news). There is also serious business to be done.
In the past the Ard Fheis has made significant decisions; to take seats in the Dublin parliament, endorse the Good Friday Agreement, support policing in the North, and repeal of the 8th Amendment. All of these were passed after extensive discussions. The democratic process is essential to maintaining cohesion.
The Ard Fheis also elects the Sinn Féin leadership. The term of office is one year. Two stand-out conferences were the one at which Gerry Adams announced that he would be standing down and the one that elected Mary Lou McDonald Sinn Féin President.
Each Ard Fheis offers an opportunity for party renewal and the setting policy to meet the challenges of today.
I would anticipate that the main policy considerations will be housing, foreign policy, and Irish Unity.
At the end of August Eoin O’Brion TD, the Sinn Féin Housing spokesperson published extensive proposals to build homes to meet the current housing crisis. We are at the point where we are losing a generation to Australia and Canada. A point where nurses, teachers, and garda (police) cannot afford to rent or buy in our major cities. A generation of homeless families are growing up in emergency accommodation. These are challenges across the US and Canada.
The building of affordable homes for rent or purchase is key to unlocking the potential of the economy, stemming the tide of emigration, securing public services, and ending homelessness. Sinn Féin has the policies and people to make the difference.
With Russia continuing its occupation of Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza continuing, and war building in Lebanon, foreign policy will be debated. The cause of peace and justice must be heard above the roar of shelling.
Sinn Féin is an all-Ireland party. We will debate the essential steps forward to building a new and united Ireland. Central to this will be an Irish Government planning, preparing and advocating for unity, something that every Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government has failed to do for over one hundred years.
Sinn Féin in government in Dublin will lead the process of unity.
Have a great weekend, I know I will.
Is mise,
Ciarán
Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America
“I love Northern Ireland, and I really like the people here, but I think that they’re way too self critical. I think the comparisons people make here are not between Northern Ireland and some other society, but between Northern Ireland and some abstract notion of a perfect society that doesn’t exist.”
He said a “more realistic assessment” of the region is a “place of people with great energy, determination, great skill and an opportunity to meet the needs that people here have and people everywhere have.
“The same basic desires: a decent job, a decent home, and, most importantly, a chance to get your children off to a good start in life, good education, good health care, good learning; and I believe this is, and will increasingly be, a society of that kind.”
The former Democratic Party Senate majority leader’s latest visit coincides with the sod-cutting ceremony and fundraising campaign for new premises for the Senator George J Mitchell institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s.
Mind you, the rain and wind today in Belfast would scunder anyone.
Letter: Nice to see a good Belfast Protestant defending Blessed Virgin Mary
Catholic priest welcomes condemnation by Wallace Thompson of sectarian chant
Fermanagh-born Fr Sean McManus is president of the Washington-based Irish National Caucus
By Letters to the Editor
September 25, 2024 at 6:00am BST
It was very nice seeing a good Belfast Protestant, Wallace Thompson, standing up to defend the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit – “Godless fools don’t deserve to be called Protestants” (September 19).
It breaks my heart and wounds my soul any time I see the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Most Holy Redeemer, insulted and blasphemed against. And one can be sure that it deeply offends Jesus Christ Himself. It is such an awful assault on the foundation of the Christian faith – the Blessed Trinity and the incarnation – that I feel the only word for it can be “satanic”. Because how can anyone, especially Christians, utter such depraved and diabolical language against God’s revealed plan of salvation: that the second person of the Blessed Trinity/God’s Son/God’s Word had to become human – had to be incarnated – and the only way, in God’s plan of salvation, that could happen was for His Word to be born of a human woman by the power of the Holy Spirit… And of all the wonderful women in the world, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of His Son – giving Mary a unique and indispensable relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Mary was the first Christian, the first follower of Jesus (even though it was Jesus who ‘followed her around’ for nine months in her womb, and later as a toddler and young boy)…How could anyone hate the Blessed Virgin Mary? Only Satan can because Satan hates Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of Mary.
A statue of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje, Bosnia
If you reject Mary – remove her from the picture, so to speak – you reject God’s plan of salvation, as the Gospel beautifully and plainly reveals.
It is obvious from everything I’ve said that Mary was human, which dismisses the big lie that Catholics worship Mary as if she were God. Nothing could be more outrageously, ridiculously false. If Mary were not human, the incarnation could not have happened – the Word would not have been “made flesh”.
Finally, I should mention it is also important to realise that the Blessed Virgin Mary was not some weak, timid, servile person (as some Christian art can imply) but a strong, fearless woman of great faith, justice and solidarity.
Her famous Magnificat powerfully proclaims God as a God of social justice. The Catholic Dictionary of Fundamental Theology says it is the strongest canticle/song in the entire New Testament and describes it as the first song of liberation in the New Testament. This same dictionary declares: “Our age needs a theology of freedom and liberation that will faithfully echo Mary’s Magnificat as preserved in the memory of the Church.”
